Yesterday I read an article about Serge Gainsbourg’s long shuttered house in Paris. Apparently the singer’s daughter, Charlotte Gainsbourg, has decided to let the public in and see the delightfully eclectic, memorabilia-filled digs, which have been preserved–Gitane cluttered ashtrays and all– just as the great French pop icon left them after being felled by a heart attack in 1991. This led me to a long rumination (and deep Wikipedia/YouTube dive) on Gainsbourg, a performer who I loved for years but who, for whatever reason, slipped my consciousness a decade or so ago. The house, as the above article shows, presents an almost blank facade on its little Parisian street which has been filled over the years with graffiti from his fans–messages of love, idolization, farewells (you need to scroll about halfway through the article to find that particular pic). From the Wikipedia entry I learned that he was born Lucien Ginsburg, spent his formative years living in fear of the Nazis as his musician father moved the family around France trying to avoid extermination, that he changed his name from Lucien to Serge because Lucian ‘sounded like the name of the hairdressers assistant’ and that he picked Gainsbourg because it reminded him Gainsborough who somewhat strangely was young Lucien’s favorite artist.

In 1968, for the TSR show (‘Television/Something/Radio’) ‘Carrefour’, Serge Gainsbourg performed one of his great hits, ‘La Javanaise’.. Above I’ve posted the video. All it shows is a French guy singing while smoking. Pure Gainsbourg, and if you’re not hip to him it’s a very apt and simple place to start. And if you like him but kind of forgot about him as I did it’s an excellent low-key re-entry point to the great, mad way-too-French-for-his-own-good artists life and art.